Kevin Garrido on the outskirts of USACH. November 2012.
9 years since the arrest of comrades Kevin Garrido and Joaquín García
Memory and solidarity with those who challenge power
In the early hours of November 19, 2015, comrade Kevin Garrido, who was 18 years old, rode his bicycle to the vicinity of the San Bernardo Gendarmerie School, armed with a bomb, a knife, and a lighter. After selecting the placement location, the comrade activates the bomb they had crafted in an artisanal manner (composed of a fire extinguisher filled with more than 2 kilos of black powder, shrapnel, and a fuse).
After the detonation at one of the entrances of the prison school, the comrade was quickly pursued and captured by a civilian car of the bastard Chilean police who had been following their steps, due to the placement of another explosive device that was set in the 12th police station of San Miguel on October 29, 2015, which was claimed by the “International Conspiracy for Revenge – Explosion Cell Gerasimos Tsakalos“ *(a comrade of the CCF imprisoned in Greece).
That same night, a warrant was issued for the arrest of the anarchist comrade Joaquín García Chanks, who was classified as a co-author of the attack carried out at the 12th police station, along with Kevin. The next morning, both comrades were paraded on all television channels as a trophy for the Chilean police state: “They sat me in one of their showrooms for more than six hours to hear the words spewed by a prosecutor with a nauseating stench. Faced with the speeches of judges and prosecutors accusing my companero and me and threatening us with dozens of years in prison, they expected faces of sadness or concern, not knowing that we would laugh and insult them to their faces.” (Kevin Garrido, Noviembre del 2016).
After their formalization, the comrades were placed in preventive detention in the maximum security section of the CAS. In June 2016, after living for 7 months in this regime of punishment and isolation, Kevin requested a transfer to the Santiago 1 prison/company, where he was sent to different modules for repeat offenders, without first passing through the “first-timers” modules as is the protocol, clearly showing an act of revenge by the gendarmerie. Even so, Kevin never asked for considerations from his miserable prison guards, nor did he walk in fear inside the prison. On the contrary, Kevin lived his imprisonment with the same determination he practiced on the street, and for this reason, he was always well received by other inmates in the modules he lived in.
In July 2016, comrade Joaquín managed to get out of prison with total house arrest, which he broke a few days later. In September 2016, after being in hiding for more than two months, Joaquín was recaptured by the PDI, carrying a revolver and ammunition.
After 3 years and 7 months of imprisonment, an extensive oral trial was held against both comrades. The court found them guilty of the attack on the 12th police station in San Miguel, but additionally, Kevin was found guilty of the attack on the gendarmerie school, and Joaquín for carrying a firearm and ammunition that he was carrying when he was recaptured. For these crimes, on 09/05/2018, Kevin and Joaquín were sentenced to 17 and 13 years in prison, respectively.
On the morning of Friday, November 2, 2018, after the morning count, comrade Kevin Garrido faced a conflict with a tyrannical prison guard, who cowardly and dishonorably attacked him from behind while comrade Kevin was going to get his weapon to confront him. After this cowardly attack, Kevin had to remain seriously injured, without receiving the necessary medical assistance, waiting for the ambulance for 1 hour and 15 minutes. He was transferred to Barros Luco Hospital, where he died after a high-risk operation.
On Sunday, November 5th, a massive funeral was held, which traveled from San Bernardo to the La Victoria neighborhood, where it was received by comrades and supporters, who accompanied the funeral procession with shouts, pamphlets, banners, fire, fireworks, and gunfire. All this under a heavy police siege that included helicopters, GOPE, police cars, injured individuals, and confrontations.
Comrade Kevin Garrido never considered himself a victim of the prison system; on the contrary, he faced it with dignity, declaring war on all expressions of the bastard authoritarianism that constitutes it, whether they be prison guards, authoritarian prisoners, judges, or prosecutors.
The insurrectionary path that Kevin embarked on from a young age, we reclaim every year by making it present in street fighting, in multiple forms of propaganda, and in direct actions that challenge authority, the prison system, and the infrastructure of progress.
Currently, comrade Joaquín García is imprisoned in the La Gonzalina prison/company in Rancagua, sentenced until November 2028.
“Who can say they are the first to tread this path, always cluttered with multiple trails? We inherit, perhaps unwittingly, the tools and the impetus that others have left behind; some have renounced, others have left, and a few still stand their ground, but what has never ceased to exist is the fertile ground, the antagonistic space in which violence can be exercised, projected, matured, and differentiated.” (Joaquín García. December 2018)
Black November in memory of our comrade
Kevin Garrido and all our dead
Freedom for comrade Joaquín García!
Received by email & translated by Dark Nights
*Chile: Claim of responsibility for thwarted attack on San Miguel Police Station (October 29, 2015)
“We know that it never gets dark there, inside the prisons.” There, memories frost over, and one forgets what the sky looks like without bars and barbed wire. If death has its own color, it must be the one painted in its prisons. Because the realm of slow death lies within, and one can feel it every day.”
When a comrade falls into the clutches of power, we cannot remain perplexed and passively watch as the bars are imposed against their will. There is no need to mention the circus created by the media apparatus, always a slave to the bourgeois order – just like the rotten citizen police – although we expect nothing from it, hatred arises every time we see our comrades scourged in the feast set up by the press and the police, celebrating the capture of a new “trophy.”
While solidarity is always important – in all aspects – we cannot be satisfied with many of the actions taken in support of our comrades, even though they are always necessary. We believe that an important part of recognizing oneself as a revolutionary is being willing – as they are – to attack the state apparatus and capital. In this way, we believe that solidarity must transcend words, forge itself in attack, and thus transform into constant action against the order. Because the recognition of affinity is accompanied by complicities and experiences, which create an unbreakable bond among the anonymous.
For all the aforementioned reasons, on Thursday, October 29th at approximately 2:00 AM, we moved cautiously through the streets of the San Miguel commune. Armed with a bomb, composed of a 6-kilogram fire extinguisher filled with more than 3 kilograms of black powder, around 100 four-inch nails and 50 one-inch nails inside to act as shrapnel, a one-liter bottle of sulfuric acid, and two one-liter bottles of gasoline, all activated by a remote control, consisting of a cell phone connected to a modified 2.5-volt light bulb as a detonator. All this to attack the bastards of the 12th police station, located at the intersection of Álvarez de Toledo and Gran Avenida. After placing our vengeful gift on the back gate of the police station, next to the booth of the useless guard, we left the place without any problems. Once we were far away and safe, we made the call that should have activated the bomb. Unfortunately for us and fortunately for the wretches, something within the electrical circuit failed. Our intentions were and are clear, to cause the greatest possible damage to the green and white den -and every fucking authority that presents itself in our lives-, we calculated that the explosion would be able to knock down the gate and hopefully cause the death of some police officer, accompanied by the greatest suffering of their families, if possible, that they choose to commit suicide.
We salute the assumed prisoner of war Ignacio Muñoz, who was kidnapped on August 1 of this year carrying a one-kilo fire extinguisher filled with gunpowder and propaganda for those accused of the attack on the PDI, and who is currently in prison serving a preventive detention of 5 months.
If we failed yesterday, tomorrow and always we will continue attacking.
FOR THE FREEDOM OF ALL PRISONERS IN THE WORLD!
WE WILL RETURN…
.-International Conspiracy for Revenge/Explosive Cell Gerasimos Tsakalos.
P.S.: In the photo, the cables are not connected for our greater safety.
